


Compromise

by AGJ1990



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring John Winchester, Protective John Winchester, Spanking, Teenage Rebellion, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGJ1990/pseuds/AGJ1990
Summary: Companion story to Gentle Toughness. When Ronnie repeatedly breaks curfew and other rules, John wonders how best to punish her for it without making her afraid of him. He comes up with a somewhat creative solution.
Kudos: 2





	Compromise

**Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural do not belong to me.**

**A/N: This is a companion story to Gentle Toughness. This story involves spanking of a teenager by a parent. Don’t like, don’t read.**

A month had passed since she moved back in with John. _Daddy_ , Ronnie reminded herself. John was her father now. He’d more than proved himself. No matter what, he wasn’t going to kick her out and he wasn’t going to hurt her.

So why did Ronnie insist on doing stupid crap like this?

Her curfew was actually reasonable and she appreciated it. She had to be home by seven on school nights and ten on the weekends. She could go almost where she wanted if she only told John where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing. All the foster homes she’d been in had made it nearly impossible for her to make friends. Sometimes the foster parents were indifferent, and just didn’t care what she did as long as they got paid. Some of them cared but just didn’t push back very hard when Ronnie rebelled against having to tell them what she was doing. More often, they didn’t want Ronnie leaving their sight and would do anything they could to prevent her from leaving.

Those were the times she didn’t like to think about. And those were the times she hoped wouldn’t come back to haunt her now.

She’d expected John to be angry when she walked in that night, but he wasn’t. He’d been waiting on the couch and simply told her to go to her room. Ronnie had tried to apologize, but John wouldn’t hear of it. He just pointed to her room, not bothering to repeat himself, and Ronnie had slinked off to her room.   
  
That had been half an hour ago, and her stomach had been churning ever since.

Finally, the door to her room opened and John stepped inside. He took a seat at her desk and turned the chair around. Ronnie watched him out of the corner of her eye, refusing to look at him for fear of seeing that he was about to give her the speech she’d become familiar with.

It’s time for you to go. Pack your bags. We can’t keep you anymore.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Not really.” Ronnie said quietly.

“Look at me.” John said firmly.

It took a monumental effort on the part of Ronnie, but she took her eyes off the floor and looked up at him. She didn’t see the look there. She knew that look-the one of exasperation, the one that clearly said whatever parent or parents she happened to have at the time were tired of her and she needed to pack her meager possessions then and there. What she saw in John’s eyes was not that, but was something that was somehow worse.

He was disappointed.

“That wasn’t really an option, kiddo. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. I think you don’t want to tell me, but I’m pretty sure you do know.”

“I’m not trying to avoid the question. I really don’t know.”

John suppressed a sigh and decided not to push it. He’d learned over the years that there were times teenagers really didn’t know why they did what they did. He wished he’d learned that lesson a little earlier with Sammy, but he pushed that back to deal with the situation at hand.

Ronnie was rebelling. Not a lot, but just enough to push his buttons. She would ‘forget’ to do her homework and her chores. She would give him an attitude for seemingly no reason at all. This was the third time she’d broken her curfew in the month since the two of them had been sitting in the graveyard that night. John had done his research and found out from Gil more details about Ronnie’s life before getting to him. After swallowing down his rage at the-he could barely stand to call them people-jackasses who had had the privilege of raising Ronnie and had instead abused it, John had come up with a plan. Ronnie would get lots of warnings, and if she continued to push, the time would come to find some way to punish her then.

The time was here.

John had a feeling he knew exactly why Ronnie was doing what she was doing. She was looking to see if he’d enforce those rules he gave her. If he would really, truly keep her around if she messed up. John knew that, if he didn’t squash this now, her minor acts of rebellions would turn major. But the question remained. How did he deal with Ronnie without making her think of the bastards that had hurt her in the past for simply existing?

The answer came to him with a word he’d heard from Sammy a lot.

Compromise.

Sam had often begged John to compromise. _Come on, Dad. Just let me go on this field trip and I’ll double up on training. Let me play soccer two days a week and I’ll double up training on those nights. I’ll do twice as many chores or twice as much research. You get what you want and I get what I want._ John had never agreed, and his relationship with Sam suffered for it. It caused many of the regrets John had to this day. Armed with a plan and determined not to repeat the same mistakes with Ronnie, John sat back and looked at Ronnie intently before continuing.

“Can I throw out a theory?” John asked. “I think you’re doing all this to try and get me to make you leave.”

Ronnie squirmed but shook her head. “No.”

“I think you’re doing it to test me. To try and see where I’ll punish you and how far I’ll go. Whether or not I really meant what I said in the cemetery. Am I close?”

Ronnie’s eyes went to the floor again. She didn’t give a verbal response, but John got the message.

John sighed. “Ronnie, I thought we talked about this.”

“We did.” Ronnie said. “But Mona did too.”

“Mona did? What do you mean?”

“She always told me that she loved me no matter what. That I had a home and I always would. Well, you saw what happened there.”

John frowned. “Honey, I’m not Mona.”

“I know. But…”

“But what?” John pushed gently.

“It just happened over and over. It’s hard for me to just trust that you won’t get tired of me eventually too.”

“It’s not you that I’ll get tired of.” John said. “I’ll tell you this as much as you need to hear it. You are my daughter. You will always be my daughter. No matter what you do, that will not change.”

Ronnie nodded.

“What I am getting tired of, though, is how you’ve been acting. You know better, Ronnie. And I can’t just let it go anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I believe that. I do. But you have to have a consequence now. You’ve had warning after warning after warning. That stops now.”

It broke John’s heart, but he saw Ronnie tense up and the fear fill her eyes. She squirmed again, and he saw her blink back tears. He briefly wondered what had happened to him, but those tears made John want to just forget everything he had planned to do and tell her that she was forgiven. But he had to be something right now that Ronnie had never really had before, which his own two boys were more than familiar with. Big, bad dad.

“What consequence?”

Surprised that Ronnie was even asking, John nodded in approval. She wasn’t denying what she’d done wrong, a big step towards leniency with him. He’d spent the entire half hour before coming into Ronnie’s room wondering exactly what he was going to do. How he was going to give Ronnie a consequence for this without making her afraid of him in the end.

“Well, I thought I would give you a choice about that.”

“A choice?” Ronnie asked skeptically. “In how you punish me?”

“Yep.”

“Nope. No way. That’s too good to be true.”

John chuckled. “While I like the instinct, I’m telling the truth.”

“Why, though?”

“Honestly? Because I know you’ve been hurt before by parents that wanted to punish you. I figured if you had a little control over what happened to you…”

“I’d trust you more.”

Impressed, Ronnie nodded. “Exactly.”

“Okay. What’s the choices?”

“Well, the first is a spanking.”

Ronnie whimpered but quickly tried to stifle it. John knew right away what she was thinking about. Getting spanked with a belt for spilling milk at the table. Getting paddled for having to leave school when she was sick. Getting spanked for being upset that no one remembered her birthday.

“Hey. Listen to me. Are you upset because you don’t know what I mean by a spanking?”

“Yeah.”

“When my boys were your age, if they’d misbehaved like this, I would’ve used my belt.”

“Please don’t.” Ronnie whimpered, starting to shake and cry again.

“Ronnie, calm down, honey. I’m not going to do that with you. If I did, you’d be too afraid of me and wouldn’t learn anything. All I’m talking about here is my hand on your clothed butt. That’s it.”

“You swear?” Ronnie asked.

“I swear. That’s it.” John promised.

“Okay. What’s the second?”

“Grounding. Three days for every time you missed curfew.”

“What happens while I’m grounded?” Ronnie asked.

“You stay in your room. You don’t go anywhere but school, and I make you run laps or any other exercise I choose while you’re grounded.”

“Can I think about it?”

“Yeah, sweetie. You can.” John said. “I’m gonna go watch some TV. Call me if you make your decision, okay?”

An hour later, John was called back into Ronnie’s room, and her choice surprised him a little. She was shaking and clearly afraid, but John realized that it meant she trusted him.

“Are you sure?”

Ronnie swallowed. “I’m sure.”

“Okay. Stand up.”

Ronnie stood up and John took her place where she’d been sitting on her bed. She was already crying. Instead of starting right away, John grabbed Ronnie’s hand and wiped her face first.

“I won’t lie and say this won’t hurt. But I won’t harm you. Do you understand the difference?”

Ronnie, not able to speak clearly for fear she’d start begging him not to do this, nodded and bit her lip. John decided not to make her wait any longer, and with a heavy heart, pulled her over his lap. Less than one minute and twenty-five quick, sharp smacks later, and Ronnie was weeping over his lap.

“S…s…sorry…”

“Shh. It’s okay, sweetie. It’s all over. You can sit up now.”

John helped her up and Ronnie immediately grabbed his neck in a suffocating hug. It took her quite a while to calm down, but John didn’t move. Ronnie was nearly asleep when she finally stopped crying, and though he wanted to hold her as long as possible, John decided it was time to talk.

“You okay?”

“Yes, sir.” Ronnie whispered, arms still wrapped around his neck. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. I know you are. It’s over, okay?”

“Just like that? Really?”

“Really, baby.” John assured her.

Ronnie finally detached from John’s neck and, with breath still shuddering as she talked, asked, “What happens now?”

“I was thinking that you wash your face and get dressed. Then maybe we go for Pizza Palace.”

Ronnie smiled. “Really? But I’ve been bad.”

“You’ve _behaved_ badly, yes. But you are not a bad _kid_. You’ve been punished for it and now it’s over. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I might not let you pick every time. And I can’t promise that I’ll never spank you worse than that. But was that as bad as you were thinking?” John asked.

“No. Not even close.”

“Good. What Jack and Allison and all those other sons of bitches who hurt you did was not okay. And I’ll never hurt you that way.”

Ronnie nodded again. “I know. I trust you. I love you, Daddy.”

John smiled. “I love you too. Now get up, I’m hungry.”

Ronnie laughed and joked, “Since you beat me up today, can I have an extra dessert?”

“I’ll tell you what. Bring your study guide for your science test next week. If you can answer twenty out of the twenty-five questions on it, I’ll not only let you get an extra dessert, I’ll take you to Pizza Planet three nights next week.”

“Deal!”


End file.
